


put your emptiness to melody (your awful heart to song)

by lincyclopedia



Series: Samwell Men's Harmonies (the a cappella AU) [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Music, Gen, Jack Zimmermann's Overdose, Jewish Jack Zimmermann, POV Third Person, POV Third Person Limited, Present Tense, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27976068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lincyclopedia/pseuds/lincyclopedia
Summary: In the wake of Jack’s overdose, his therapist convinces him to try to find a new hobby. After a few false starts, Jack takes up singing. Once he gets to Samwell, he joins the a cappella group Samwell Men’s Harmonies.
Relationships: Alicia Zimmermann & Jack Zimmermann, Shitty Knight & Jack Zimmermann
Series: Samwell Men's Harmonies (the a cappella AU) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2049012
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	put your emptiness to melody (your awful heart to song)

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [OrSaiKellieLonore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrSaiKellieLonore) for musical help and general cheer-reading! The title's from Hozier's "To Noise-Making (Sing)."

When Jack gets out of rehab, moves home to live with his parents for the first time in years, and starts going to therapy just twice a week rather than every day, his therapist suggests he take up a hobby and start making his identity about something other than hockey. He resists at first—hockey makes sense to him like nothing else does—but his therapist asks every time (patiently, always patiently) if hockey makes him happy, and eventually he has to admit that the answer is no. 

The first few things Jack tries are busts. Chess makes him miserable—he’s pretty sure his parents are just letting him win, so he plays against his computer, turned up to the hardest level because he’s still not ready to let anything be easy, and then he always loses; he knows he’s improving, but not fast enough, and doing something competitive just makes him sad about losing hockey, for all that it stopped making him truly happy a long time ago. Painting is better than chess, but it’s so subjective that he has no idea whether he’s good or bad at it. He keeps trying anyway, but one day he finds a playbill from one of this mother’s old Broadway productions, and he decides to ask her about it. 

Jack’s gotten better at reading his mother’s facial expressions since moving back home, and he can tell she’s trying to think of something to say that’s both honest and encouraging and having a hard time of it. Jack has a feeling he knows why she’s struggling, so he decides to try to help. “I don’t want to act,” he assures her. “I’m pretty sure I’d be terrible at that. But I was wondering about singing. That part sounds like something I might be able to do.” 

Alicia’s features smooth over. “Oh! Yes, you could certainly try that. I’ve always liked your voice.” 

The compliment sounds genuine, and Jack ducks his head, smiling. “Thanks.” 

“How do you want to do this?” Alicia asks. 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, with chess, and with painting, you’ve been pretty private, mostly just practicing in your room or the living room. You can do that with singing, too. You could just put on CDs or YouTube videos or whatever and sing along if you want. I’d want to give you at least a couple pointers, because there are ways to seriously mess up your voice if you don’t know what you’re doing, but I could keep it brief and then stay out of your hair once I’d said my piece. Or there are probably tutorials on how to sing properly on YouTube, if you want to learn more actively but don’t want anyone else involved. I could try to coach you for real if you wanted—goodness knows I’ve taken years of voice lessons—but I know feeling like we were pressuring you turned out badly last time and I don’t want to teach you if that would make anything worse. I’d also be happy to help you find a voice teacher if you want lessons but don’t want to take them from me, but of course that means having contact with someone outside the family, and singers often say that letting someone hear you sing is like letting them see you naked—it’s a vulnerable act. Basically what I’m saying is that you have options, and I don’t want to make this decision for you.” 

Jack blinks a few times, absorbing the information. “Can I have some time to think about it? The idea of singing just occurred to me this morning, and I’m not sure how serious I am about it yet.” 

“Of course, sweetie,” says Alicia. “I’ll be ready to listen or help if and when you make a decision.” 

“Thanks,” Jack says, and he hugs her. It’s a little awkward—he’s still not really used to being physically demonstrative; he was physical with Kenny, but that was very, very different—but he knows she appreciates the hugs, so he tries to hug her as often as he remembers to. 

Jack thinks about it for a few days and watches a few YouTube tutorials on how to sing properly, but he quickly gets the sense that YouTube tutorials aren’t going to be enough. He’s not sure what “tone quality” and “tone color” even mean (how can a tone have a color, anyway?), so he’s pretty sure he’s not going to be able to tell if he’s achieving what he’s meant to be achieving in those areas. He knows what it sounds like when someone sings off-key, and he’s pretty sure he’s mostly avoiding that, but it turns out there’s more to good singing than just hitting the right notes. Jack considers asking his mom to coach him, but she’s right—the last time one of his parents got involved in a goal he had, it turned out very, very badly. He’s not sure how to tactfully ask her to find him a voice teacher, but he opts for directness. While helping her with the dishes after dinner, he says, “You know how you said you could help me find a voice teacher?”

Alicia nods. 

“Could you do that, please? I think I want to give singing a real shot—I mean, not super seriously, at least not right now, but somewhat seriously? More seriously than just YouTube tutorials. I mean, I don’t know if I’ll like it and I don’t want to commit to all that much right now, but I do want to do more than just dip my toes in.” 

“Sure, Jack,” says Alicia. 

“It’s okay that I’m asking for a teacher who isn’t you?” Jack asks quietly. 

“Yes,” Alicia replies. “Most definitely. Like I said, singing is a very vulnerable act. Sometimes it’s easier to expose yourself like that in front of a stranger, rather than in front of someone whose opinion matters to you. And even if it weren’t something so vulnerable, I wouldn’t want you to feel like you have to put yourself in a position where you ask for critical feedback from me. If someone else is teaching you, I can just sit back and clap if you ever give a recital or are part of a performance, and ignore you when I hear you practicing. If I were teaching you, I’d need to tell you what you were doing wrong so that you could correct it. That might not feel good for either of us. It’s definitely okay for you not to want that.” 

“Thanks,” Jack whispers. 

Alicia uses her contacts and finds Jack a voice teacher named Pierre. He’s from New York, but his mother’s Quebecois, and he’s fully bilingual. He didn’t quite make it in the New York opera scene, but he’s found his niche as a voice teacher in Quebec. 

“Would you like to do this in English or French?” Pierre asks Jack the first time they meet. 

“Francais, s'il vous plaît," Jack replies, so that’s what they do. Pierre plays the piano and demonstrates exercises that Jack can use to warm up his voice—some that go up and then down; others that go down and then up. Pierre’s voice sounds good both at notes that are too high for Jack and notes that are too low for Jack. Pierre says they’re both baritones and that Jack’s range will expand with time if he practices. 

Jack knows how to practice. Or at least, he thought he did. Since the overdose he’s begun to realize that his old methods of motivating himself—which mostly consisted of telling himself he wouldn’t deserve to live if he didn’t perform to the utmost of his ability—were unhealthy, and he isn’t sure how to find new patterns of thinking. He asks his therapist about it, and she suggests that he thinks about the good things that will come from doing the thing he’s trying to get himself to do, like how his voice will improve if he practices his vocal exercises and the songs Pierre wants him to learn, rather than thinking about the bad ways that failing to do that will reflect on him. 

It sort of works. Jack knows he’s practicing less than he would if he were threatening himself in order to get himself to comply, but he’s also kind of, sort of able to handle the fact that he’s not practicing as much as he could be. Besides, it seems his voice, at least at this stage in his learning, has much less stamina than his body had when he played hockey. He could skate for much longer than he can sing, and he slowly learns to obey the limits of his voice to avoid damaging it. He also learns that this means he needs to practice a little every day; he can’t sing for three hours one day a week to make up for six days of slacking. 

The first real piece Jack learns is “Après un rêve,” which has a fairly easy range other than one high note Jack struggles with a bit. He feels pretty good about his ability to sing the piece until he looks up the song on YouTube. In the most popular rendition of it by a male singer, the singer’s voice kind of shakes in this understated way that somehow makes everything sound much better. Jack asks Pierre about that shaking at his next voice lesson. Pierre tells him it’s called vibrato and that if Jack works hard enough on singing with a warm tone his voice will do that too someday, but it’s not a good thing to try to force to happen. Jack is only halfway sure he knows what a warm tone is, but he feels comfortable enough to admit that to Pierre, and Pierre spends the next ten minutes trying to demonstrate various tone colors/temperatures to Jack and get Jack to replicate them. Jack isn’t very good at the mimicry because he’s still trying to figure out how to get his voice to do what his brain is telling it to do, but he thinks he understands intellectually what Pierre means. 

After a few months, Pierre asks if Jack would be interested in being part of a recital given by several of his other students. Jack declines, and Pierre doesn’t push. Jack wonders if Pierre is always that considerate or if Alicia said something to him about Jack, but ultimately Jack decides he doesn’t care. His wishes are being respected and that’s all that matters.

Jack starts to look at colleges. He isn’t sure what he wants to do with his life. He enjoys singing, but he’s scared of committing to anything with the single-minded determination with which he committed to hockey, so he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to attend a conservatory. When he tells Alicia this, she suggests that he look into liberal arts schools, since they encourage and often even require students to explore several different subject areas, rather than allowing or forcing students to focus only on their majors. She tells him that she had a wonderful time at Samwell and that it has great programs across the fine arts—after all, it launched her acting career—but that he should feel free to apply wherever he likes. 

So Jack looks for liberal arts schools with strong music programs. It seems like a lot of those schools are Christian, though—Mormon schools in the western United States and Lutheran schools in the Midwest, especially, along with Bellmont in the South, which is Baptist—and, upon further investigation, a lot of those schools require all of their vocal music majors to sing in choirs, which in turn are required to participate in the school Christmas concerts, which are, upon even further investigation, very, very Christian affairs. Which means attending one of those schools would either entail Jack participating in a Christmas concert or else forgoing much of what the music department had to offer, which would kind of defeat the point of attending one of those schools to begin with. Jack hadn’t necessarily put a lot of effort into being actively Jewish while he was in the Q, but he’s been rediscovering a lot of traditions and faith practices since then and finding a lot of comfort in them. He doesn’t want to attend an explicitly Christian school and he really doesn’t want to have to perform in a Christmas concert to get his degree if he decides to major in music. 

College applications are due just after Hannukah, so he puts the finishing touches on his essays in between nights of candle-lighting, dreidel-spinning, and latke-eating, and he feels good about his decision to just apply to Samwell, not any of the Christian schools. If he doesn’t get into Samwell—he’s not sure what his odds are; he’s a legacy, but he only sort of went to high school, and he knows Samwell is pretty selective—he’ll just wait a year and take some more time to figure things out. He’s not quite sure what other options look like, but he tells his anxiety that he doesn’t have to know now and that he’s done enough for the moment. 

The acceptance letter comes in March. Two weeks after he’s been accepted, Pierre asks if he’d like to participate in a recital along with Pierre’s other students. This time, Jack says yes. He prepares two pieces, one in English and one in French. He’s worried about what being in the spotlight will feel like, and he talks to both his therapist and Pierre about his nerves and the fact that they’re not quite as simple as stage fright—that he’s worried about the effect exposing himself to others’ judgement again, no matter how low-stakes the situation, will have on his mental health. In the end, he decides it’s worth the risk and that he’ll need to get used to having at least a bit of attention on him if he’s going to join a choir or an a cappella group or try out for an opera. If it’s a disaster or if he genuinely can’t handle it, it’ll be good to figure that out before college anyway, so he can start thinking about another potential major. 

The recital winds up going well. By now, Jack has realized that singing is almost meditative for him, because he can’t get so caught up in thinking ahead that he forgets to focus on the present moment. He needs to think ahead at least a bit to make sure he doesn’t run out of breath, but most of his attention needs to be on the note he’s currently singing, making sure that his mouth shape is right for his current vowel and he’s on-pitch and using the right amount of breath to stay at that pitch and sound good. Being forced to stay in the moment that way is kind of nice, and it’s far more effective than any sort of actual meditation that Jack’s tried. That meditative quality cancels out the audience’s attention, and Jack manages to control his breath for the performance without as much effort as he expected.

Jack packs for Samwell in August with help from his parents. He gets a single dorm because he’s pretty sure he needs more alone time than a roommate would allow for, and he needs to control at least a few parts of this whole college thing or his anxiety is going to go haywire. He’s signed up for choir, and he has an audition scheduled for two days after move-in; he got the audition excerpt in his email three weeks ago. On move-in day, Jack’s parents fly down to Samwell with him, help him unpack his things, take him to dinner at a restaurant called Jerry’s where Alicia claims to have many fond memories of brunch, and then leave. 

Once they’re gone, Jack walks to the music building on his own, just to check it out. The only posters on any of the otherwise-empty bulletin boards or pillars are for a cappella groups and the jazz band. Of the a cappella groups, there’s one that appears to be all-women, judging from the pictures of what must be one of their performances from a previous year; they’re all wearing skirts and little neck scarves. The posters state that the group is called Agatha. Another a cappella group is called the Well Well Wells. That group appears co-ed, going by the pictures and the fact that the posters proclaim, “All genders welcome!” ( _All genders?_ Jack wonders. _I thought there were just two._ ) The third a cappella group advertising itself in the music building is called Samwell Men’s Harmonies, and the posters feature pictures of a group of guys who look more chill than Jack has ever felt in his life, even on way too much Xanax. Jack puts the audition times for both the Well Well Wells and Samwell Men’s Harmonies in his phone. From his college research, he knows that the East Coast has more of an a cappella scene than a choir scene, whereas it’s the opposite in the Midwest and at the Mormon schools. Even though he’s planning on auditioning for choir, he figures he may as well also try out for the a cappella groups he’s eligible for. 

The next few days are a blur of picking up his textbooks, doing way too many bonding activities with the guys and non-binary people (apparently Jack was wrong about the number of genders) on his floor of his dorm building, learning his way around campus, and auditions and callbacks. Jack gets a choir callback and a callback from Samwell Men’s Harmonies, though not from the Well Well Wells, whose very attractive co-presidents seemed thoroughly unimpressed with his initial audition (which, to be fair, Jack was pretty sure wasn’t all that impressive). 

Classes start and Jack falls in love with his Intro to American History class right away—he definitely likes it better than Music Theory I, but that’s okay; that’s why he picked a liberal arts school and not a conservatory, after all. He has time to decide if he wants to major in music, or history, or both, or something else entirely. His callback for SMH (which, he’s been informed, is what everyone calls Samwell Men’s Harmonies) is the first Wednesday of classes, and Jack only feels halfway okay about it; his voice definitely cracks a couple times. He’s therefore pretty surprised when his name is posted on the music building bulletin board the following Tuesday as a member of the 2011-2012 crop of SMH. He finds out when he arrives at the first rehearsal that he’s one of only two frogs who made the cut, the other being a mustachioed tenor named Byron, who throws an arm around Jack at the end of rehearsal and declares that they’ll be friends. 

Byron turns out to be right. They don’t have any real classes together—Byron’s studying political science, but his reaction to his Intro to Women’s and Gender Studies class seems similar to Jack’s reaction to his Intro to American History class, so he might add a second major—but they’re both in choir, and SMH takes over both of their lives a little. They’re both serious about it in their own ways; Byron’s a goofball, but he studies hard in the classes whose professors he respects, and he’s an intense vocalist for someone who already knows he’s aiming for law school. Jack tries to take cues from Byron when it comes to the art of taking things seriously while also having a bit of fun, and he’s not sure he makes any progress in that department, but his therapist says it’s a good sign that he even wants to try. Jack and Byron hang out and play cards and watch documentaries, and it’s good. 

SMH gives a winter concert featuring only secular songs, which Jack really appreciates, especially given that the choir is doing multiple Christian songs just because they make up so much of the choral literature. Jack doesn’t have any solos, but that’s okay; he doesn’t feel ready for that much of the spotlight. Even just being in SMH’s three-person baritone section feels like plenty of pressure. Byron doesn’t have any solos either, and he seems similarly okay with the situation. 

During spring semester, Jack gets his first solo. SMH is doing a rendition of “Sweet Caroline”—one of the SMH sophomores, John, somehow got the arrangement that the Beelzebubs used on The Sing-Off a couple years ago, and Alex, SMH’s president and one of three seniors in the group, decides Jack should sing it. It’s a big solo; the rest of the group is basically just going to sing, “ba ba ba,” and, “So good! So good! So good!” except for the beat-boxer, another senior named Keegan, who’s going to be doing his thing the whole time as usual. Jack isn’t sure he can carry a whole song like that, but he gets his voice professor to let him practice it during voice lessons even though it’s not really a voice lesson-y genre of music, and that helps. (Byron’s mantra of “You’re a beautiful motherfucker with the best goddamn voice I’ve ever heard and you’re going to fucking slay it out there” also helps.)

When the day of the concert arrives, Jack tries to treat it like any other day, except for the fact that he’s avoiding dairy since dairy is bad for your singing voice. He doesn’t let himself sing until he gets to SMH’s warm-ups because he knows he’d just run the risk of tiring his voice out, though he can’t keep himself from getting out his sheet music for “Sweet Caroline” and reading through it in his head a couple times. At warm-ups, Byron grabs Jack’s hand, and Jack squeezes back tight. (The choir holds hands for performances and even dress rehearsals, so it’s not weird, or at least Jack doesn’t feel weird about it and he’s pretty sure Byron doesn’t either.) And then they take the stage, and Jack’s a little grateful for the ridiculously bright stage lights because they mean he can’t see the audience at all. He can almost pretend this is just another rehearsal. 

He hits all the notes. He remembers all the dynamics. He’s on beat the whole time. _He nails it._

Okay, so maybe his stage presence could use a little work. Whatever. It’s his first solo with SMH, his first time singing for this many people, and it doesn’t suck. There are other songs in the concert, of course—“Sweet Caroline” is both the opener and the one Jack was most fixated on, but it’s not actually the only song SMH is performing—but after his solo Jack relaxes and lets himself get a little lost in the music. It feels amazing. 

The concert is just two weeks before finals, so there’s no time for more rehearsals before the end of the year, nor would there really be a point to rehearsing more after the concert, anyway. The group is planning a party for the weekend before finals, which (if Jack goes) will be Jack’s first college party, since he’s declined the few other invitations he’s received, including the SMH holiday party. Since Jack still hasn’t decided whether he’ll make an appearance at the party, he sticks around after the spring concert a bit, saying his goodbyes, especially to the seniors. 

When Jack makes to say goodbye to Alex, who hasn’t shut up about the high school choir teacher job he’s gotten since he was first offered it over a month ago, Alex grasps Jack’s shoulder and says, “Actually, can I talk to you for a minute?” 

Jack gets a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Sure,” he forces himself to say. 

Alex scans Jack’s face for a second and then says, “It’s nothing bad, I promise.” 

Jack tries to believe him as the two of them walk out to the little patio behind the music building, but it’s hard not to freak out given how quiet Alex is. When the door swings shut behind them, Jack starts to apologize. “I’m sorry for not getting more into my solo. I mean, I was really focused on my notes, but I know I should’ve, like, embodied the words more—” 

“Jesus, Jack,” says Alex. “I meant it when I said it was nothing bad. You did great. No, it wasn’t perfect, but first of all nothing ever is and secondly you’re a freshman and it would be ridiculous to expect you to have every individual piece of performing down pat. I knew I was asking a lot of you with that solo, and I knew it was you I was asking, and you exceeded my expectations.” Alex runs a hand down his face and then says, “Look. I don’t know if you know this, but Charlie, the last president of SMH, took me aside after his last concert as a senior and asked if I’d be president when he graduated. And that’s what I’m doing now, with you. I think you’d make a great president and I want you to be my successor.” 

Jack’s head spins. “What? I’m literally a freshman.” 

“You’re also the only music major besides me in the group,” Alex replies. “Most music majors at Samwell are in orchestra, not choir, and most of the singers join the Well Well Wells. Wait. You’re not planning on auditioning for the Well Well Wells next year, are you?”

Jack shakes his head vigorously. That, at least, he’s sure of. 

“Cool,” says Alex. “I know you’re currently just a freshman, but I promise that you already know more music theory and singing technique than anyone else in SMH who’s not graduating, and that’ll only be more true by midway through next year. And you’re organized—I’ve seen your notes when you’re studying before rehearsal starts—and you’ve got leadership skills; I know you were captain of that junior hockey team before shit went down.” 

“If you know _that_ , then you must also know what happened when shit most decidedly went down,” Jack replies, stung. He’d really thought no one in SMH had Googled him, and he’s not sure what to do now that it’s turning out Alex’s known about him for an indeterminate amount of time and hasn’t said anything until now. 

“I do,” Alex replies calmly. His face softens. “If you think you really can’t handle it, I can ask someone else. I don’t want to, but I can. I don’t want to dump this on you if it’s going to hurt you, especially not if you think it’d be . . . you know, _bad_. But I’ve been watching you all year, and I really think you can do it. If you want a right-hand man, John’s been around the block and really knows SMH inside and out. It’s a little scary the stuff he knows, actually, but he can help you pick people for callbacks and for the final roster and choose music and find or write arrangements and stuff. I don’t think he’s got the kind of leadership skills you have, and he’s not actually studying music, but I do think he’s got good instincts and would be willing to help you out. And like, I’ve seen you and Byron together and I think it’s great that you two are friends, so I’m not gonna tell you _not_ to ask Byron for help, but—he doesn’t have John’s instincts or your skills, and we all know singing is just a side thing for him. Which isn’t a bad thing at all; it’s just something to keep in mind.” He takes a deep breath. “Okay, that was a lot of talking. What do you think? Do you want to be president of SMH?” 

Jack breathes in and out a few times and then finds himself nodding. “I think—yeah. I do. If you think I’d be good at it.” 

Alex nods back. “I definitely do.” 

Alex heads back inside with Jack at his heels. The rehearsal room isn’t as full as it was when they left, but Byron, Keegan, and John are still there. “Gentlemen,” says Alex, “may I present . . . the new president of SMH, Jack Zimmermann!” 

Jack waves awkwardly for a second before Byron tackles him. They go crashing down, and Jack’s glad that a lifetime as an athlete has taught him to fall, so at least he doesn’t break his wrist or get a concussion heading into finals. “You glorious motherfucker!” Byron screams in Jack’s ear. 

“Yeah, yeah,” says Jack, wincing.

John comes over and offers Jack and Byron each a hand up. Once they’re all standing, John says to Jack, “Congratulations, man. This’ll be really good for you. You made the right choice there.” 

“Thanks?” says Jack uncertainly. 

“You’re gonna be ’swawesome!” Byron half-shouts. 

“I hope so,” says Jack to Byron. Then he looks at John and says, “Alex said you might be willing to help me, like with auditions and choosing music and finding arrangements and stuff. Can I text you over the summer?”

John agrees, and then Alex and Keegan head out, followed shortly thereafter by John, at which point Jack and Byron turn off the lights in the rehearsal room and leave too. Byron asks Jack if he’s been stargazing on the quad, and Jack admits that he hasn’t, so Byron insists that they head to the quad immediately to remedy that. 

“You really think I’m going to do okay as president of SMH?” Jack asks quietly once he and Byron are lying in the grass. 

“Bro. I think you’re going to do spectacularly.” Byron sighs. “I know I use hyperbole at, like, basically all times, and that might make it hard to figure out if I mean what I’m saying, but I really do think you’re an awesome musician and an amazing person and I legitimately, actually cannot think of anyone who deserves to be president of SMH more than you.” 

“Thanks,” says Jack quietly. 

“Of course, dude,” Byron replies. “Man, I can’t wait for next year.”

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I am planning on writing a sequel to this, focusing on Lardo. Not sure when I'll finish that, though. Subscribe to the series (or to me!) if you want to be notified when that comes out. Secondly, credit where credit is due: I took the idea of Samwell having a musical group called the Well Well Wells from [that one band AU by tomato_greens](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22094491). Third, if you were curious about the songs referenced in this fic, [here's the French song Jack learned in voice lessons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRrdWhKuwQ4) and [here's the Beelzebubs performing "Sweet Caroline" at The Sing-Off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gewU78c5jo).


End file.
